Steel band is a group of musicians who play a distinctive form of West Indian dance music on percussion instruments called steel pans. The pans are sections of 55-gallon oil drums cut to different sizes. The inner surface of each pan is marked out into separate areas called keys. A pan-maker prepares a pan by hammering each key so that it produces a different musical note. A player produces music by striking the keys with rubber-tipped sticks or beaters. Other percussion instruments, such as conga drums, are also part of a typical steel band. Steel bands are extensively used in calypso music. See Calypso .
Loading the player...Jamaican popular music
Modern steel bands originated in the late 1930’s on the island of Trinidad to accompany carnival celebrations. Winston “Spree” Simon of Trinidad is generally given credit for making the first pan. Steel bands were made the national instrument of Trinidad and Tobago in 1992. The country is the home of an annual major steel band music competition, called Panorama, which began in 1963. The competition features highly sophisticated arrangements of music for steel bands, including symphonic music. The popularity of steel bands has spread from the Caribbean to the United States; to Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom in Europe; and to Japan and Taiwan in Asia.
